The weekly newsletter for Fed2 by ibgames

EARTHDATE: February 25, 2007

Official News - page 11

WINDING DOWN

An idiosyncratic look at, and comment on, the week's net and technology news
by Alan Lenton

Ick! I hate being ill. But I've struggled out of my death bed (actually I'm feeling a lot better) to bring you this week's issue of the soon-to-be-legendary Winding Down.

Because there was no edition last week, the format for this week is slightly different. Instead of mostly being shorts there is an analysis piece on Digital Restrictions Management, a longer piece than usual on a patent dispute that threatens to engulf a large number of hi-tech and media companies, and a round up of security issues.

All good chunky stuff. So...

'Welcome back, my friends, to the show that never ends!' *


Analysis: Digital Restrictions Management - The Coming of the Long Knives

By any measure you care to make Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) is on the ropes. DRM is an attempt at a technical solution to a problem of a defunct business model used by the media companies. Nice if you can do it, but there's one problem - it doesn't work.

It might have worked in a pre-Internet era, because there was no way to provide the mass distribution of programs that circumvented the DRM code. But then again, by the same token, the old business plan worked in the pre-Internet era, because the opportunities for individual distribution of songs was limited.

DRM is built on a fundamentally flawed premise. It's that if you make something complex enough, only a few clever people will be able to untangle what you are doing. Most people will just have to put up with what you are offering. Unfortunately, that's simply not true. With the fruits of clever people's work easily available, you don't have to put up with what the media companies are offering.

The truth of this is slowly coming home to the media companies, and there are clear signs of breaches in the dam. In particular, EMI stuck a toe in the water last summer and offered DRM-free MP3s of some of its top-selling artists via Yahoo. The global music industry wasn't exactly brought to its knees by this initiative.

More importantly, it seems, EMI is now going one further and has made a proposal for DRM free MP3s to the major on-line music retailers in January. Predictably, EMI won't confirm or deny the reports, but the reports seem pretty solid.

Since EMI is one of the four conglomerates that effectively control the music business, any move of this nature that it makes will reverberate through an industry which has already been badly burned by botched attempts to infect people's computers with DRM programs.

Apple's Steve Jobs, a, if not -the-, key player in the digital music retail market has already put his cards on the table and come out against DRM for digital downloads. In addition, the word on the street is that Amazon seriously wants to get into the market, but is refusing to play as long as the media industry insists on using DRM.

All of which is perhaps unfortunate for Microsoft, since it sacrificed most of the new innovations originally intended for Windows Vista on the altar of stuffing the operating system to the gills with DRM crud so it could deliver protected 'premium content' (songs and movies to you and me). Sorry guys, no premium content equals no Microsoft DRM licensing fees.

Most unfortunate, terribly sad, my heart bleeds...

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/02/09/steve_gordon_drm/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/02/09/emi_ditching_drm/


Story: Patents - A License To Print Money

The big story of the week was all about Microsoft being hit by a bill for US$1.5 billion damages over infringement of an MP3 patent held by Alcatel. The underlying case is complex, but if the award is upheld by lower courts, there are a lot - possibly thousands - of other companies using the same technology.

At the same time, Microsoft is embroiled in a Supreme Court case over whether it should pay up for infringing a patent belonging to AT&T. It's not disputing paying for US infringements, but it is disputing that it should have to pay for copies of Windows put onto machines overseas by other companies (i.e. the PC manufacturers).

It was particularly ironic that Microsoft should get so publically embroiled in two patent disputes this week given that Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer was busy rattling the patent sabre in the direction of Open Source software during a session with Wall Street analysts.

When I was looking at software patents a year or so ago, I predicted that calls for a complete overhaul of the spectacularly broken patent system wouldn't come until more and more big companies started to fall foul of the system, and that's exactly what is happening now, with an increasing number of calls, both from inside and outside Congress, for the system to be sorted out.

When patents were the exclusive preserve of the big boys, issues like the Microsoft/Alcatel spat could easily be resolved with no money changing hands by the simple expedient of mutual licensing.

All that changed with the dot com bust. Many of the expiring vapourware firms were snapped up for their software patents by patent trolls who produce nothing themselves, and who therefore have no interest in trading patents - they are only interested in money. Over the last few years there have been more and more attempts to enforce these patents - which often should never have been granted - and the big boys are now starting to feel the pressure. Thus the calls for patent reform now starting to be heard.

In the meantime, of course, the lawyers are the ones finding the whole business to be a nice little earner.

"US1.5 billion, sir? Kerrching! That'll do nicely!"

http://ct.techrepublic.com.com/clicks?t=31141784-18a32f6148453f76b7d88f6b914d69a0-bf&s=5&fs=0
http://ct.news.com.com/clicks?t=31487379-18a32f6148453f76b7d88f6b914d69a0-bf&s=5&fs=0
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/02/23/microsoft_alcatel_patent/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/02/22/microsoft_att_windows_patent/


Security Roundup:

I reported a month or so ago about TJX, the US retailing giant reporting a serious security breach of its computers. The original reports suggested that the intrusions took place between May 2006 and January 2007 and involved credit and debit card transactions relating to 2003. Now, however, TJX has revised these figures and admitted the hacking dates back to 2005, and that 2004 transactions are also at risk. To give some idea of the seriousness of the problem, more than 60 banks in Massachusetts have begun reissuing cards to customers they believe might have been affected. When will these major companies (TJX turnover last year: US$17.4 billion) start to apply basic security, like encrypting all their customer records?

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/02/22/tjx_security_breach/

Google fixed a security flaw in its desktop search software this week. Google, the Internet company par excellence, neglected to properly deal with maliciously formed input, resulting in a method by which hackers could slip into the desktop application environment from the more tightly controlled web environment.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/02/21/google_desktop_search_bug/

It seems the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) still has a lot to learn about security. They recently created a web site to allow people whose names had wrongly got onto its notoriously inaccurate 'no fly' list to apply to be taken off. What a shambles. For a start they failed to provide a secure link in spite of asking users for extremely sensitive personal information. That has now been fixed, but they are still using cookies, contrary to Federal policy on this issue.

I guess that like most 'security' agencies the world over, they think that rules are for other people, not for them. Still the TSA have to be congratulated on belatedly providing a means for people to correct the list. If this actually works, there probably won't be anyone left on the list.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/02/21/tsa_website_snafu/

More woe in New England - more than 1,700 state workers in Connecticut found out recently that their personal information, including names and social security numbers, had been accidentally posted on the Internet. The information may have been there since October 2003, it seems, which indicates just how much use the state makes of its own web site! As one report said, 'Officials believe the risk of identity theft was low.' Well they would, wouldn't they? Oh look, a flying pig!

http://www.physorg.com/news91114399.html

Did you know that on average between three and four FBI laptop computers are lost or stolen each month? Worse, the agency often can't say whether any information on any given machine is sensitive or classified.

I have only one question. Why are operatives being allowed to take these computers out of the office?

http://www.physorg.com/news90504553.html


Scanner: Other stories

Linux breakthrough for Visual Basic developers
http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2007/02/21/visual_basic_mono_linux/

Vista OEM 'Express' upgrades stuck at the gate
http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2007/02/16/redeem_this_bill/

Microsoft is crying foul against IBM
http://www.regdeveloper.co.uk/2007/02/15/microsof_standards_ibm/

Wiki can link to controversial documents, judge rules
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/02/16/wiki_doco_judgment_reversed/


*Emerson, Lake and Palmer: "Karn Evil 9: First Impression, Part 2"


Acknowledgements

Thanks to readers Barbara, Fi and DJ for drawing my attention to material used in this issue. Please send suggestions for material to alan@ibgames.com.

Alan Lenton
alan@ibgames.com
25 February 2007

Alan Lenton is an on-line games designer, programmer and sociologist. His web site is at http://www.ibgames.net/alan.

Past issues of Winding Down can be found at http://www.ibgames.net/alan/winding/index.html


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